Netgear’s Orbi series of wireless mesh routers have been around for quite some time and continue to evolve in the Wi-Fi 7 era. we have reviewed Netgear Orbi 770the company’s entry-level Wi-Fi 7 mesh router. Now, we have an Orbi 970 review unit, which represents the absolute best Netgear offering in this segment.
Designed to work with The best Wi-Fi routersThe Orbi 970 is a quad-band mesh router that comes with a main router and two satellite routers. Unfortunately, the Orbi 970 is also priced too high, making ASUS ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro Looks relatively cheap. The Orbi 970 router with one satellite has a suggested retail price of $1,699, while a router and two satellites cost up to $2,299. Our review unit consists of the latter.
Read on to find out if the Orbi 970’s performance and features live up to its eye-watering price tag.
Netgear Orbi 970 Wi-Fi 7 Mesh Router Design
Like many mesh routers on the market, the Orbi 970 has a tower design. But in this case the nodes are absolutely huge. Each node measures 11.6 x 5.68 x 5.15 inches and weighs 3.96 pounds. By comparison, each ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro node measures 8.43 x 2.83 x 6.86 inches and weighs 2.96 pounds. Routers and satellites won’t blend in with your home decor as easily as more compact systems.
Despite its large size, its design is attractive. Each node is primarily white with gold accents at the corners. The LED is located below the Orbi logo and changes color depending on the connection status of the node.
Orbi 970 routers and satellite routers are not the same. The main router has one 10G port for WAN and four 2.5G ports. Satellite, on the other hand, has one 10G LAN and two 2.5G LAN ports. There are no USB ports on the router or node to accommodate external USB storage or USB printer sharing.
The Orbi 970 comes in white and is available from Netgear’s retail partners. It’s also available in black at no extra cost, but can only be purchased from the Netgear online store.
Netgear Orbi 970 Wi-Fi 7 Mesh Router Specs
| wireless network standards | Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) |
| Wi-Fi band | 2.4 GHz: 4×4 (Tx/Rx), up to 1,147 Mbps |
| 5 GHz-1: 4×4 (Tx/Rx), up to 8,647 Mbps (dedicated backhaul) 5 GHz-2: 4×4 (Tx/Rx), up to 5,765 Mbps | |
| 6 GHz: 4×4 (Tx/Rx), up to 11,530 Mbps | |
| CPU | 2.2 GHz quad-core processor |
| memory | 2GB RAM, 4GB Flash |
| Coverage | 10,000 sq. ft. |
| port | 1x 10G for WAN, 1x 10G for LAN, 4x 2.5G for LAN (router), 1x 10G for LAN, 2x 2.5G for LAN (satellite) |
Setting up the Netgear Orbi 970 Wi-Fi 7 Mesh Router
Like most modern Wi-Fi routers, setting up the Orbi 970 is simple. I plugged power into the router and both satellites, then ran a cable from the modem to the 10G WAN port on the router. I then ran a cable from the 10G LAN port on the router to my test server.
Once connected, I pointed my web browser to orbitin.net, where I could log in using my default Netgear credentials (admin/password) to set up the mesh network. I changed the default password, created the IoT network, and completed the configuration process in about five minutes. During this time, the two satellites were automatically paired with the router and a firmware update was applied to all three nodes.
The Orbi 970 has four wireless bands: one 2.4GHz, two 5GHz, and one 6GHz. One of the 5GHz bands and part of the 6GHz band form a dedicated wireless backhaul between the router and the two satellites. If you prefer, you can also use wired backhaul to improve performance and stability.
Wireless clients can only access the 2.4GHz band, the second 5GHz band, and the 6GHz band. If you have wireless clients that support Multi-Link Operation (MLO), the Orbi 970 is built to combine the 6GHz and 5GHz bands (the Wi-Fi 7 client adapter we used for testing is MLO compliant). With this arrangement, clients can send and receive data via both frequency bands simultaneously, thereby increasing overall throughput.
Netgear claims that our Orbi 970 trio of review units can cover up to 10,000 square feet, which is a bit much for most consumers. The Orbi 970 two-pack covers 6,600 square feet, while a single router/satellite covers 3,300 square feet.
Netgear Orbi 970 Wi-Fi 7 Mesh Router Software
Our Orbi 970 review unit was updated to firmware 9.12.4.16_1.3.21 during initial setup of the grid system. The update is delivered via over-the-air (OTA) functionality, which is available to all connected nodes. You can also manually update the node if you have the appropriate firmware files.
As someone who bought the first-generation Orbi Wi-Fi mesh router when it debuted, I’ve noticed that the web UI hasn’t changed much in the past seven years (nor has the smartphone app). The five main tiles on the home page give you the status of your network connection, wireless network (showing SSID and password), number of connected satellites and clients, guest network status, and Netgear Armor Safety.
There are also two tabs on the left side of the interface: Basic and Advanced. The basic version gives you minimal control over network connections and wireless settings, lists all devices connected to the node, configures guest networks and allows you to add another Orbi satellite.
Interestingly, you cannot create an additional SSID for the main wireless network—all devices must connect under the main SSID. For example, if you only want to establish an SSID for a 6GHz device, you cannot do that here. Your only option is to use one of the IoT or guest network options. However, these are limited to the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands.
The Advanced tab gives you other options, such as testing the speed of your Internet connection using Oookla’s SpeedTest utility. You can also perform a firmware update from this menu tree.
Overall, the Orbi network interface seems relatively basic and barebones compared to the more complex and easily tweakable AsusWRT 5.0 software we’ve seen in Wi-Fi 7 mesh routers like the ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro and ZenWiFi BT10.
You can also use Netgear’s Orbi smartphone app to set up and maintain the Orbi 970. The application also enables remote management of the Orbi 970 network, which is not possible using web browser methods.
All Orbi 970 routers come standard with one year of Netgear Armor, powered by Bitdefender. It’s a comprehensive suite that provides an extra layer of security for all connected devices, parental controls, ad blockers, real-time threat protection, and VPN access. Netgear Armor sells for $99.99/year.
Netgear Orbi 970 Wi-Fi 7 Mesh Router Performance
Our Wi-Fi client test platform dedicated to Wi-Fi testing consists of MSI Pro B650M-A Wi-Fi motherboard, AMD Ryzen 5 7600 processor, 32GB DDR5 memory, 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, MSI Herald-BE Wi- Fi consists of 7 adapters, and Windows 11 Home. Our Windows 11 server has an onboard 10 Gbps wired network card connected to the 10 Gbps LAN port on the Orbi 970 router.
The iPerf3 and ping tests were run at 6 feet and 25 feet respectively, with or without traffic on the network. In the congestion traffic test, we added six new wireless clients and transmitted 4K YouTube videos evenly across all frequency bands.
Unlike most routers, you can’t isolate the 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz bands with your own SSID on the main network. Therefore, we had to manually configure the settings of the MSI Herald-BE Wi-Fi 7 client adapter in Wi-Fi to test each band individually. By default, Orbi 970 combines 6GHz and 5GHz bands for supported MLO Wi-Fi 7 clients.
I did a short range test six feet from the main node. Far-end testing was conducted at the closest possible distance of 25 feet from all three routers in the center of my home.
The Orbi 970 performed well in all tests, as expected from a system with an MSRP of over $2,000. This mesh system’s iPerf3 performance on the 6GHz band at six feet nearly matched that of our speed champion, the ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro. The Orbi 970 has a speed of 3,340 Mbps, while the ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro has a speed of 3,523 Mbps. Likewise, the Orbi 970 trailed the ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro in performance at 25 feet (1,240 Mbps vs. 1,907 Mbps), but it was still good enough for second place. Additionally, maintaining the show should be easy with the fiber optic internet speeds available to most U.S. residents.
Moving to the 5GHz band, the Orbi 970 dropped to 1,423 Mbps at 6 feet, again placing second behind the ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro. However, the results reversed at 25 feet, with the Orbi 970 coming out on top (723 Mbps vs. 611 Mbps).
In our 2.4GHz band test at 6 feet, the Orbi 970 took top honors with 131 Mbps. Extending to 25 feet, the Orbi 970 ranked third (52 Mbps), behind the TP-Link Deco BE65 Pro (71 Mbps) and ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro (58 Mbps).
Our crowded test had a similar story, with the Orbi 970 and ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro nearly tied at six feet in iPerf3. However, the ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro opened up a bigger advantage at 25 feet (1,613 Mbps vs. 1,117 Mbps). The two speed champions traded places again in the 5GHz band test, with the ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro taking the lead at 6 feet and the Orbi 970 having a slight advantage at 25 feet.
The Orbi 970 saw minimal performance degradation at 6 feet in the crowded 2.4GHz band, while performance was about the same at 25 feet.
After subtracting the 2.4GHz band test, ping times at 6 feet and 25 feet typically stayed in the sub-10 millisecond range.
It’s important to note that wireless performance may vary greatly depending on the environment in which the router is installed. Your home’s age, size, construction materials, and wall thickness (among other factors) can all affect wireless range and performance.
bottom line
The Netgear Orbi 970 performs well on the 2.4GHz, 5GHz and 6GHz frequency bands. It’s a close race with the Asus ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro, our reigning speed champion (and even slightly beating it in some tests). The biggest problem with the Orbi 970, however, is its eye-popping price.
The Orbi 970 has a suggested retail price of $2,299. Retail price $1,999 on Amazon For a three-pack. If you opt for the two-pack (which is probably enough for most families), you’re still looking at MSRP $1,699 and Market price $1,444. In comparison, the performance of the ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro (which we also criticized for its high price) A two-pack retails for $1,128making it look relatively cheap.
The Orbi 970’s main network wireless band also has limited configurability, and there isn’t as much room for optimization as its Asus counterpart. Although it may not matter to every consumer, there are no USB ports on the router or satellite.
Don’t get us wrong; the Orbi 970 is a great piece of hardware with performance to match. However, considering cheaper competition with similar performance and more network configuration options, we wouldn’t recommend dropping $1,400 to $2,000 (depending on how many satellites you need).